|
Roads to Sufi Masters: The Theme of Travel in Central Asian Hagiographic Narratives
Shahzad Bashir, Associate Professor, Religious Studies, Stanford University
Sufis in the medieval period regarded traveling in search of charismatic masters as an activity critical to their religious development. Such travel most often took place along well-established paths linked to other activities such as commerce, pilgrimage to shrines, and political embassies. Sufi hagiographies from Central Asia contain extensive descriptions of great masters traveling to various places as young men and later becoming hosts to visitors at their hospices in cities such as Bukhara, Tashkent, and Herat. This talk will utilize the theme of travel to highlight how we can use hagiographic narratives to understand the social and religious history of pre-modern Central Asia.
|
